Stanley Hospital’s programme not lending a helping hand

However, in the absence of donors, the programme is still waiting to take off, with more than 100 patients on the waiting list. Doctors say that disfigurement of the body in the process has been stopping bereaved families from donating the limbs of their deceased.

Ramaiah (name changed), a factory worker from Kanyakumari, injured his hands in an accident that rendered them beyond repair a few years ago. He had approached the doctors at the Institute of Hand and Reconstructive Microsurgery in the Government Stanley Hospital more than a year ago, but is still awaiting a donor for a hand transplant. Hand transplant is a composite tissue transplant and it is performed after compatibility tests are carried out. 

Last year, it was for the first time in the country that the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre in Kochi carried out the procedure on two recipients.  Dr V Ramadevi, head of department and professor, plastic surgery, at Stanley Medical College and Hospital, says that fear of disfigurement is the main reason for the poor donor rate. She says, “Prosthetic hands will be used to cover the area, but many families still don’t volunteer to donate the hands,” she says. 

She adds that most patients on the waiting list of the programme are those who have had industrial accidents. “Trauma constitutes 80 per cent of the cases that come to the centre for treatment. For those who need hand transplants, the sooner the procedure is carried out, the results are better,” she says. It is estimated that more than 4,000 people in Tamil Nadu require hand transplants. 

Dr Sunil Shroff, founder trustee, MOHAN Foundation, which is working in the field of organ donation and transplantation, points out that globally, such procedures have been carried out rarely.  “There are not many institutes in Tamil Nadu that can do it, but again, across the world, the numbers of such transplants are in the 100s. If one or two come forward to donate, there may be a surge in the number,” he says.